New KM e-Book

The Asian Productivity Organization today released a new KM e-book entitled “From Productivity to Innovation: Proceedings from the Second International Conference on Technology and Innovation for Knowledge Management.” The conference was held in New Delhi, India last 12–14 February 2008. Dr. Serafin D. Talisayon of the Philippines served as the conference rapporteur and volume editor.

You can download the e-book for free by clicking HERE.

Share Fair 2: Implications for Development

Today, IKM Emergent organised a Roundtable in the Open Space at lunch time. Although we didn’t get many participants, they made up for lack of  numbers with their quality and they included some of the cream of the KM4Dev community. We discussed and’brainstormed about the implications of all the knowledge initiatives presented at the Share Fair for the broader development sector. In fact, we discussed the implications for how we do development. Although there was general agreement that there were indeed implications for this – which is what Peter Ballantyne predicted! - our discussion was broad ranging:

• Whether to mainstream knowledge management within organisations or to put it into the hands of knowledge management specialist staff?Our general conclusions was that mainstreaming and drivers were needed and that one strategy without the other might not work.
• As we had heard much at the Share Fair, power issues hinder knowledge sharing and the work of knowledge networks. Effective knowledge-based approaches in the future might lead to flatter, less hierarchical organisations.
• The difference in status between researchers (higher) and knowledge managers (low) was not conducive to knowledge sharing. In some cases, support staff in the role of communications or knowledge sharing were seen as a ‘scourge’. Only when they become part of the core business were the accepted by more senior staff.
• Institutional structures and the emphasis of researchers needing to publish in peer-reviewed journals did not necessarily support the development role of knowledge.
• Development research in all institutions should have a development focus although that might require changing of the institutional structure funding development research.
• Management, researchers, support staff and field offices within an organisation will have different ideas about and understanding of knowledge management. An effective organisational strategy will need to recognise the different layers within an organisation.

Converting tacit to explicit knowledge and vice-versa

Further to my earlier post on “Information versus Knowledge”, here is my take on the losses when tacit knowledge is converted to explicit knowledge.

Here are ways we build our own tacit knowledge from explicit knowledge that we read.

Corresponding KM tools are in the pink and light blue callouts. Any comments or suggestions for improvement?

Our development concepts may be THE problem

My previous two blog posts (F13- KM is for value creation: WHOSE value? and F14- Monitoring and evaluation of KM for development) point to a key criterion in KM for development: What do community members truly value?

In 2003, CCLFI.Philippines implemented a project on “Leveraging Best Practices” for UNDP. We documented best practices into manuals, and tried to capture the qualities of best practioners through vignettes and video interviews. We invited community leaders who were recipients of UNDP grants in lessons-capture workshops. Near the end of the project, we conducted a “Wisdom and Knowledge Sharing Workshop.”

One of the workshop exercises tried to probe what the community members value by asking the question: “What is a successful community project?” The workshop groups were asked to draw their answers and explain their drawing to the rest of the participants.

Information versus Knowledge

Hi Valerie, welcome to the club!

This is what I use to show the distinction between information and knowledge. I hope this helps.

I prefer the above operational definitions of “tacit knowledge” and “explicit knowledge” (I shy away from ontological and epistemological definitions because they tend to be too impractical and often deteriorate into useless debates).

Source: Overview Chapter in “Knowledge Management in Asia: Experiences and Lessons”. Tokyo: Asian Productivity Organization, 2008. The e-book is freely downloadable.

10- KM4D: Three Viewpoints

“KM for Development” or KM4D can be seen from different viewpoints.

Level 1. Community viewpoint

We saw earlier in “Unconscious KM and Conscious KM” that successful anti-poverty projects are those that leveraged well the intangible assets owned by or accessible to the community, and that the broader concept of “intangible assets” and the even broader construct of “metacapital” are preferable units of management than the more limited “knowledge assets” or “knowledge”.

9- Estimating the Benefit from Organizational Learning

One of the poll questions I often ask participants in my KM workshops is “Estimate what percent of your total knowledge (now) came from your formal schooling.” Almost all answers are below 50%. The average hovers around 20%, depending on the ages of the participants. Then I ask “Where did the 80% come from?” Their answers reveal three major sources: learning from doing/working, learning from study/reflection and learning from interaction/sharing with others.

8- Valuation of Intangible Assets

The private sector has a handy way of assigning market value to tangible and/or intangible assets: the capacity of the asset to generate earnings. Using the M&E framework proposed earlier, this is the same as saying that the value of 1 is the sum of all future 3 (after discounting):

7- Interactivity and Context

We saw earlier that knowledge is capacity for effective action.

Let us study the following observations about ineffective actions:

1- An X-ray film enables a radiologist to make better diagnosis, but it is meaningless to a plant engineer. Specifications of a turbine enable a plant engineer to make design decisions, but it is meaningless to a radiologist. The right skill must go with the right information for effective action to result.

6- “High-Octane KM” is Demand-Driven KM

Here is a story how CCLFI.Philippines applied the M&E framework I described in my previous post.

In September 2005, the Executive Director of STREAMS (an international network of NGOs in water and sanitation, which was one of CCLFI.Philippines’ partners) asked for our help. STREAMS Board members flew to Manila and are meeting together with an Observer from their major funding sponsor, the Netherlands Government. She asked, can I please convince her Board that KM is important? My time slot was only one hour. And she warned that the Observer is avowedly sceptical of KM!